by Hannah Holmes
Random House (To be published February 22, 2011)
Fast becoming adept at probing the science behind being human, science writer Hannah Holmes, author of 2009’s The Well-Dressed Ape, is at it again with Quirk. This time around Holmes dissects human personality into five distinct components: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. She calls them “dials…each set to different temperatures,” and proceeds to slice each component further into separate facets (for example, neuroticism breaks down into anxiety and depression, extraversion into impulsiveness, activeness, cheerfulness, and assertiveness, and so on).
Holmes covers the evolution of each of these facets and takes the reader on a tour of world-class laboratories studying some of these qualities in mice, always with an eye toward tying it back ...
